Full Adamantium Jacket
by LilLolaBlue
Summary: Germany, 1944. Welcome to Hell. Meet the Invaders guerrilla warfare squad, Sgt. Eddie Blake & Col. Jim Howlett. They’re the best at what they do, but what they do best isn’t very nice. Join them for mayhem & ultraviolence at the twilight of civilization.
1. Blood and Iron

**FULL ADAMANTIUM JACKET**

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters except the ones I invented, but I do know a lot about WWII. Still, no money for me. Oh well. I don't care too much for money, because money can't buy me dead Nazis.**

**Author's Note: I am not prejudiced against Germans, I am of German extraction, myself, and proud to be German. However, I. like a lot of people, am not too fond of Nazis. What can I say? I majored in history and watched a lot of war movies. Also Indiana Jones. Seriously, though, the attitude of some of the characters in this story are historically accurate as to the attitudes towards Germans and Germany during wartime. War is Hell. Especially this war. If you don't like it, don't read any further. Thanks.  
**

**Chapter 1: Blood and Iron**

**July, 1944: Western France**

**I: Eddie**

He waited until it was quiet, and he heard no more voices coughing at each other in German before quietly crawling out from under a pile of dead bodies and twisted metal that had until a few minutes ago been a truckful of soldiers; his escort to the Invaders base camp.

The Comedian had done such a good job in the Pacific of killing off Japs that Captain America wanted him to join the Invaders, and kill off Fritzes.

Sure, there was more to it than that, but that was the bottom line, wasn't it?

Somebody had to go out there and put the fear of God into these Fritz bastards, somebody who had no remorse and gave no quarter.

Somebody even a fucking Nazi would fear.

And the first son of a bitch that came to Cap's mind was the Comedian.

Eddie got haltingly to his feet, holding one hand over his leaking guts, in which he'd taken a bullet.

It sure as hell was funny.

To survive the D-Day landing earlier in the month only to get killed because some Regular Army dickhead who never got out of his chair in Washington thought the Comedian needed an escort.

But, Eddie had a stronger constitution than most men, and he knew that when the truck never arrived, they'd come looking for him; he just had to hold out that long.

Some guys had dug in for themselves, but whether they were our guys or their guys, Eddie didn't know; the trench was abandoned and it was good enough for him.

He opened his knapsack and cleaned out the wound with a little whiskey, then did his best to bandage it up.

He had a drink, and lit a cigarette, decided he'd start a fire and break out his mess kit after he waited awhile and got some of his strength back.

Onions.

You were supposed to eat onions after you took a slug in the guts, and then, if you didn't smell onions coming out of the hole in you, you were alright.

If you did…

Eddie was glad he didn't have any fucking onions.

He must have fallen asleep, because the sound of a voice yelling out in English woke him up.

"Hey! Anybody in that goddamn trench?"

"Yeah, pal! Just me!"

"Well, lookout!"

Eddie heard the whistle, put his helmet on and flattened himself in the bottom of the trench, hands over his head.

He got covered with a spray of dirt and rocks, but when he peeked over the top of the trench he saw a body lying on the ground.

The other guy wasn't so lucky.

He looked dead.

Real dead.

But the twitching he was doing didn't look like the way a corpse twitched, and Eddie knew well that some people are a lot harder to kill than others?

"Hey, soldier? You still breathin'?"

"Barely."

"Awright. Stay still. I'm gonna come out an getcha."

Holding his belly with one hand, Eddie pulled what was left of the other man into the trench with the other.

The guy was hit, bad.

He had taken shrapnel in his chest to the extent that he didn't have much of a chest. The shell blew off his skin and tore open his rib cage; it was pretty much all blood and meat.

You could see his straining lungs and his weakly pulsing heart, all ridden with big, jagged pieces of shrapnel.

His hands were mutilated; he had two fingers and a thumb left between them both.

Blood bubbled onto his lips and sprayed out of his chest in a fine mist when he raggedly breathed, making a disgusting, gurgling sound, and one side of his head was caved in, you could see skull and blood and brain matter.

On top of all of it, the poor bastard was trying to hold his chest closed without having any hands to do it.

There was only one reason why he wouldn't be dead, and Eddie knew what it was right away.

His father had been a mutant, and so was his oldest sister.

But a hit like this, and he was still breathing?

This guy was some kind of fucking mutant.

"Don't try to move, pal. Lemme hold your outsides in for ya, I still got hands."

The man looked at his hands.

"Shit!"

"Save your breath pal. Just don't look at 'em. They gonna grow back?"

The man tried to sit up and couldn't.

"How…" he gurgled, coughing up blood.

"My Old Man was like you. You heal up good enough you're gonna make it?"

The man nodded.

"Okay. Well, lets get ya sittin' up so youse don't choke on your own blood. You want me to get these big pieces of shrapnel outa you?"

Another nod.

"Just yank 'em out?"

"Yeah."

Eddie pulled a rag out of his knapsack and wiped the blood off the injured mutant's mouth and chin.

He took a bullet out of his gun, and, understanding, the mutant put it in his mouth.

He made these strange growling sounds as Eddie took the big chunks of shrapnel out of him, and it was pretty amazing the way the wounds just started to heal up, right before Eddie's eyes.

Even the big wound across his chest; the one Eddie bandaged.

He sat back, breathing hard from the effort.

The mutant put his hand on Eddie's shoulder.

"Hey, take it easy, bub. You're hit. I'm gonna heal up, don't worry about me."

He had fingers again; his hands were healed, and so was his head.

Un-fucking-belivable.

It would have taken his father months in a hospital to get better from that shit.

"So will I, if I can get this bullet out. Just not so fast as you."

"Gimme about an' hour, bub. Then I think I can help youse. So, you're the Comedian, ain't you?"

"Yeah. That's me. You?"

"They call me lotsa things. Wolverine. Lucky Jim. Jimmy. But my real name's Logan. And I didn't need a goddamn escort to get to the Invaders."

"Me neither. Fuckin' high command sonsabitches got a whole buncha guys killed over nothin'. Well I got news for these Fritz motherfuckers. I didn't make it through D-Day so's I could die in this trench like a fuckin' dog. They're gonna pay for this. In fuckin' spades. I'm the goddamn Ace of Spades. They'll see."

"We'll make sure of that. Soon as you're better."

Eddie blacked out again, for awhile, and when he woke up, the bloody piece of meat he had dragged back into the trench with him was a man, again, stocky and hairy under the tattered remains of his bloody uniform.

"Did I go out?"

"Yeah, but I was watchin you. So, you think you're ready for the operation?"

"I'm ready. Just lemme have a little of that whiskey I got in the flask in my knapsack. You wanna drink?"

"No, Comedian. You need it worse than I do."

"Eddie. My name's Eddie. So, how you gonna get this bullet outa me?"

"With these."

_Snikt!_

"Holy fuckin' shit! Were you born with those?"

"Sure was. And there ain't no scalpel sharper."

Logan gave Eddie back the bullet he had bit on, and Eddie put it in his mouth.

Logan poured some of the whiskey over his first claw, retracted the other two, cut off the bandage, and poured some more of the alcohol over the bloody wound.

"Yeah, I can see the son of a bitch. An' I see you got fishing line and a sailcloth needle, here, so, I'm gonna take this bullet out an' sew ya up. That oughta hold you till we can get outa here. Alright?"

Eddie just nodded.

Logan worked as quickly as he could, knowing that the young superhero must be in agony, but he took it well.

Didn't thrash, just bit the bullet and swore around it, clenching at the dirt around him.

When he was done, Wolverine poured a little more whiskey over the closed wound and re-bandaged the Comedian.

He was surprised when the man spit the bulled out in two halves, and a mouthful of gunpowder.

"Tastes like shit."

"Well, here's your whiskey. You're one tough sunnuvabitch, bub."

"I hadda be, in my life. Or I'd be one dead sunnuvabitch. I got food, and a mess kit. There's enough for both of us."

"I'll make the fire."

***

They spent a long night over the fire, talking.

The two men instinctively knew they could trust each other, and spoke about their checkered pasts, Logan's long, violent labyrinthine and tragic, and Eddie's short, violent and equally tragic.

Eddie told Logan about how he raised his whole family, and showed him pictures of the kids at home.

"So what finally happened to your bastard Old Man?" Logan asked.

"I killed him. My sister and I. We didn't have no choice, and if I could, I sweat by Christ I'd dig the motherfucker up an' kill him again. Him and all the rat bastards like him I've sent to an early grave."

"You killed your own father?"

"He wasn't much of a fuckin' father."

"Yeah. I know what ya mean, bub. So did I."

Eddie was quiet.

"Jesus." He finally said.

"Yeah. Except my Old Man, he was like me. So I'm not so sure he's really dead. When this war's over, I think I'm gonna go back an' look for him. He wasn't like your father, he wasn't all bad."

"Hey, Jimmy?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm pretty sure I'm gonna make it, but if I don't, you can have my boots, and my knapsack, and my coat. I know it's too big for ya, but, until ya can get some clothes, it'll do. But there's money in the bottom of my right boot; I wantcha to send that home, to my sister. She's takin care of the little kids. An' look in the bottom of my pack. Under the lining. There's a letter in there to my girl, Sally Jupiter. If I die, I want her to have it."

"No kiddin', Eddie? The doll on the side of the B-52's? She's your girl? Shit, you're a lucky guy."

"Yeah. I coulda been. But we ain't on the best of terms, these days. When I was just a dumb kid, I tried to do somethin' real bad to her. Real bad. About the worst thing ya can do to a woman. Jesus, why the fuck would I do such a thing? I'm no rapo. I dunno what came over me, Bad blood, I guess. Fuck, I'm talkin' outa my head. Must be a fever. I dunno. Maybe, after the war's over…willya do that for me, Jimmy?"

"Yeah, Eddie. Sure. But I don't think you're gonna die. Lemme look in here an' see if you got some quinine tablets. For that fever."

Eddie just laughed.

"Whatever else I say, don't pay no attention to it."

"I won't."

***

Bucky had rarely seen Steve so angry.

He usually didn't have much of a dirty mouth; a few hells and a damn and a shit here and there, and the occasional goddamit, but he was really cussing a blue streak, driving the Jeep like a crazy man, jerking the wheel around.

"…dumb sons of bitches and their looks good for the newsreels bullshit, do you know they got twenty or thirty guys killed? And maybe the Comedian and Wolverine, too. Goddamnit, I needed those men, and I'm real sure that even guys like them got some family. And what about all those poor bastards, those dogfaces who got their asses blown to Kingdom Come? For what? For nothing! For bullshit, Bucky. Goddamn fuckin' bullshit, that's what…"

And that was the least of it.

Bucky was practically goggling in shock at the stream of profanities Cap was uttering, and then he saw what looked like a head in an American helmet poking cautiously over the top of a trench.

"Look over there, Steve! Is that a smile face painted on that helmet?"

"Sunnuvabitch, Bucky! I think it is! Hang on!"

***

Eddie had a little trouble standing up, he leaned on Jimmy, who was a foot shorter than him, but the man was built like a Sherman tank.

"Colonel Jim Howlett, reporting for duty, Captain." Logan said.

"Save it, Jimmy. What happened to your uniform?"

"I got blown to bits. The Comedian, here, dragged his ass out of the trench with a bullet in his guts and pulled me in and held my insides in for me while he was bleeding like a stuck pig. Bandaged me up. I got the bullet out of him and sewed up the hole, and bandaged him up, but he probably still needs a doctor."

"I don't need a doctor. I need a nurse. With great big tits." Eddie said.

Captain America started up the Jeep.

"You'll get the doctor first, soldier." Cap laughed.

"Yeah, but what if I die? Ain't we gonna pass one of those famous French whorehouses along the way? I'm fine. C'mon, I almost died, here."

Logan started to laugh.

"As soon as we patch you up here, you boys are going to London. I've got a job that requires your special talents. So you'll have to make do with English girls." Cap replied.

"Yeah, well, you can't watch me alla time. I never been ta London. What about you, Jimmy?"

"Yeah, I been there, bub. Just a few years ago; I know where all the best places in London are for guys like us ta have a good time." Wolverine told him.

This guy, he was alright.

"That's what I wanted ta hear! Whaddya think, kid? You look like ya need ta lose your cherry. When I get better, I'll take youse along with me. I may hafta pay for you, but you're Cap's sidekick. I'm sure he's good for the money."

Bucky looked even more flabbergasted, and the Comedian laughed.

"What do you mean, you'd only have to pay for the kid?" Logan asked.

"Shit, Jimmy, I'm the Comedian. I never hadda pay for a woman in my life."

"And how long has that been? How old are you, soldier?" Captain America asked.

"Twenty."

Wolverine and Captain America exchanged looks.

Twenty?

He didn't look twenty, and he didn't act it, either; but they both knew that if the Comedian was still just a young pup, that meant this war was about to get a helluva lot more interesting.

"Hey! If you're twenty, can't call me kid."

"That's 'Hey, Sarge' to you, kid. An' shut up, Bucky. You're a kid. I know all about you."

"You do?"

"Yeah. I'm from Brooklyn, too."


	2. War is Hell

**Chapter 2: War Is Hell**

**West Germany, 1944**

**I: Bucky**

"Bucky! In here! This one ain't too bad, there might be some decent food in here. Maybe a new pair of boots for Jimmy."

The Comedian put his broad shoulders to the ragged front door, and crashed in, gun first, blocking the doorway with his tall, burly body.

"All clear!" He said, slinging his gun over his shoulder.

Bucky followed him in, greeted with the sight of the remains of an old couple, dead on what had been their living-room floor.

Eddie stepped unthinkingly over the bodies.

"Is it just me, Eddie, or does none of this bother you?"

Sgt. Eddie Blake wasn't paying much attention to what Bucky had to say, for the sole reason that Eddie didn't often pay a lot of attention to what Bucky had to say, because most of it wasn't that important.

Especially not when he needed to concentrate all his energy on survival.

"What? Shit! Fucking door!"

Impatiently, the young superhero kicked aside the charred remains of an oak door as he made his way through the bomb-damaged abandoned house.

He stepped through the rubble of the kitchen and started jerking open cabinet doors.

"Corn Flakes. At least they look like Corn Flakes. And beer. Beer! Lookit, Bucky, we got beer! Here ya go, kid. Have a beer! Corn Flakes and beer go great together. Breakfast of champions. Anything's better than that slop in the truck. They got any spoons in this joint? Yeah. Good. I guess it's too much to ask for a bowl. Plates don't do well with shrapnel. Hold out your helmet, Bucky."

"Eddie, that was the people who lived in this house we stepped over on our way in here."

"What? You been in this since '41 and you never saw dead people?"

"These were civilians, Eddie. Ordinary people, sitting in their living room."

"Where did you think all the bombs go, Bucky? Right on Hitler's head? Nothin' we can do for them, now. We gotta look after ourselves. Eat your cereal before it gets soggy. I'm gonna look around and see if I can find anything else we might need. You watch that beer. Don't let Jimmy drink it all."

"That's looting."

"No, it's foraging. When the other side does it, that's looting. I'm not gonna steal their family heirlooms, kid. I mean shit we need to survive."

As the Comedian poured a bottle of beer over the cereal he poured into Bucky's helmet, another soldier trooped with heavy footsteps over the heavy door.

The short, hairy but powerfully built man with wild black hair sat down at the table and began taking off his destroyed boots and socks, so he could put on the pair Bucky realised that he'd taken off the dead man lying in the remains of his living room.

He slammed his helmet on the table.

"Fill 'er up, Eddie."

"Here youse go, Jimmy. Two beers for each of us. Happy days. You watch the kid, I'm gonna go… "

"Logan, Eddie. I goddamn hate people calling me Jimmy."

"I know ya do. I'm gonna go check out the rest of the joint. See if there's anything worth taking."

Bucky watched Sgt. James "Logan" Howlett wolfing down cereal with beer from his helmet as the Comedian walked over the door he kicked in, and presumably stepped over the bodies of the dead inhabitants of the bombed out house, once again.

Bucky had tried, in the ten, or was it 11 or 12 days, since they had been separated from the Invaders and lost behind enemy lines, to keep the thoughts from coming to his mind, but he found he no longer could.

It was simple for Eddie and Logan. They had to survive long enough to make it back to camp, and whatever they had to do to survive and make it back to camp was okee-dokee with them.

What was right and wrong didn't come into it.

There was just life, and death.

It was a lesson Bucky wasn't sure he wanted to learn.

At first they were on foot, travelling at night, hiding in bombed-out houses and abandoned barns and churches with no ceilings during the day, engaging in the occasional close up and person hand-to-hand skirmish, and otherwise endlessly searching for food, water, shelter, and ammunition.

Then they found the Fritz supply truck, loaded up with food, guns, medicine and ammo.

No, they took the Fritz truck.

Eddie and Logan killed the Fritzes driving and guarding the truck while they were sleeping, and then they took the truck.

Logan used his claws and Eddie used a knife, and they killed and the Fritzes died, without making a sound.

That was what they did.

That's what "Guerrilla Squad" meant.

They went out and slaughtered the enemy, like they were rabid dogs in the street.

Wasn't this what the Nazis and the Japs were doing?

Murdering their enemies in their sleep. Killing civilians mercilessly, leaving them dead in their ruined towns from England all the way to Russia.

That wasn't what the Allies were supposed to be doing.

Sure, these people were Germans. All the dead people he'd seen, in their homes, on the road, and the barely alive, stumbling along the road, they were Fritzes, they were the enemy.

But the insides of their houses looked a lot like the inside of the houses at home, and that man and that woman lying dead in the remains of their living room, vainly holding onto each other with expressions of terror and surprise on their face, they didn't look like the evil jackbooted Nazis he and the Invaders had been fighting.

Even the sleeping soldiers, they were all just guys, regular Joes, they could have been anybody.

Now they were dead.

Bucky wanted to go in and attack, to fight them like men, but Logan and Eddie snuck in like jackals and killed the men like they were mad dogs.

Was it like this all over the Axis territories?

Even if it was all Hitler and Hirohito's fault for starting this God-awful war, my God, what was the point?

Was everybody in the world reduced to brutality and savagery? Had they all degenerated into being a pack of scavengers, ripping each other's throats out over enough gristle and carrion so they could live long enough to make it to the next day which would probably be the day they would die?

How could there ever be victory, with so many lives lost, or destroyed, and a whole continent in ruins?

And at what price?

He couldn't help but think he was a witness to the end of civilisation, and the birth of a new era, where everything he had every believed in and everyone he ever respected would be useless and worthless.

And the Eddies and Logans of the world would inherit the Earth.

"Eat your food, Bucky. Or it's back to that Fritz shit in the truck."

"I can't. I haven't eaten anything for two days. I don't want to."

Bucky gave Logan a desperate look.

Jim Howlett was slightly less savage than Eddie; although he didn't feel what Bucky felt, he could understand why Bucky felt it.

"Fuck. Look, I know you weren't supposed to see all this shit. I know you thought you'd seen it all, but this civilian shit…this is the worst. You can't hang a goddamn flag on it and say "oh, well" I mean, I ain't sayin' Steve was lyin' to you, but, this is how it is, Bucky. That's why they say war is hell."

"It's not just the war, Logan. I mean, how can the world ever go back to the way it was before after all this? Lookit this place. Lookit these people. And you know it's twice as bad where the Nazis and the Japs have been. Half the world's in ruins. Even when we win, how can the world come back from this? I'm telling ya, it feels like the end of the world. Or at least the end of civilization."

"That ain't gonna happen. Take it from me, Bucky. Sure, things never go back to the way they were before, an' it'll take time to rebuild. But that's what people do after wars, an' disasters. Everybody who isn't dead comes out and shakes hands with everybody else who isn't dead, and they start over again. It may not be just the same as they remember it, but they wanna get as close to the way it was as they can. That's the way people are. There ain't no supposed to be. There's just life. An' after death on a scale like this, livin' is all that's gonna be on everybody's mind, not the end of the goddamn world, or what they usedta do, or what they shoulda done, or what they should be doin'. Hell, I dunno. Maybe I'm scarin' you even more, talkin' the way I am. You just trust me and Eddie. We'll get you back to base camp, and you can talk to Steve about it. Cap's better at this kinda shit than I am. Eat your food, Bucky. You'll never find out anything if you're dead, too."

"But doesn't this stuff bother you guys? You an' Eddie? I mean…I guess…Jesus Christ, Logan. Jesus Christ in Heaven!"

"Sure it bothers me. You think I can look at old men and old ladies lyin' dead in their living rooms, and put my hands in guys' guts while they're sleeping and look out the window of the truck at people who look like the walking dead stumbling down the road and not feel anything? But I don't let it get to me, Bucky. I don't believe in the way things are supposed to be, I just know how they are. I got a job to do and I know how to do it, and if it ends this war one day sooner, then I ain't ashamed of it. Look, a long time ago, when I was young, and green I thought that war had rules to it, that there was a certain way things were and that wasn't gonna change. I was wrong. Ya can't let it kill ya, kid. You know what? Keep prayin' Bucky. God may listen to you. He ain't gonna listen to guys like Eddie an me. Ya see, I was in the last war. And the one before that. I'm a lot older than I look, kid. It's not my first time at the rodeo."

"What about Eddie? He told me he's only 20!"

"Eddie never had the luxury of thinkin' about things the way they wer supposed to be. He was born to this. He's never known anything else in his life."

"Whaddya mean? He's from Brooklyn, like me an' Cap, ain't he?'

"He's from Brooklyn, but nothin' like you an Cap. I never met many people had it worse than Eddie."

"Like what?"

"Shit, Bucky, you bein' from Brooklyn, I thought you knew this story. They said his old man went to the chair when he was 14. Actually, Eddie and his sister killed him after he escaped from Death Row, leaving ten men dead in his wake. That's the kind of guy Eddie's father was. The man was the Devil's own. He was a real low-down piece of shit criminal son of a bitch. He used to beat Eddie, and torture him. He'd get out of the joint and come home and beat up the whole family and steal the money Eddie's Ma made cleanin' houses an' starved them and terrorised them. He did it to Eddie's mom and his older sister in front of the rest of them, just to show them what a son-of-a-bitch he was. The guy was a real bad man. So Eddie killed him. That's what Eddie does. He makes sure bad men like his father don't get away with it. And if he has to kill them, he kills them. Honestly, considerin' how he came up, it's a miracle he decided to come down on the right side of the cape."

"You mean…it, Logan? It? Eddie's father, he…he fucked 'em? His own daughters? In front of his son?"

Bucky knew there were horrible men in the world that did horrible shit like that, but he thought it happened in some weird uncivilised place in the darker parts of the world, not a few subway stops away from his own neighbourhood in Brooklyn.

"Yeah, and I'll bet the fucker did it to Eddie, too, when he was too little to defend himself. Guys like that will do it to anybody, just so long as they know it'll hurt them. Like these goddamn Nazi SS bastards. Sick fucks. They're all a buncha weird queers. They get you in that prison camp, you better watch your cornhole. They'll do it to ya just to show you they got ultimate power over you and you're nothin' but dirt. Which is another reason you better stick with me an Eddie and do what we tell ya. Now eat your food and don't ask me any more questions you don't wanna know the answers to."

Bucky started to eat.

He didn't realise how hungry he was until he started eating, and he was ashamed to sit there in a house full of death and eat these people's food, but he couldn't help himself.

The Comedian returned, with two pillowcases with knots tied in them, tossed them on the table, and finished off the box of cereal.

He opened two of the beer bottles with his teeth, poured one over his food and drank from the other.

"I got some clothes that might fit the kid, another pair of boots, a couple bottles of booze, and they were hiding a whole buncha food. Kinda shit that don't spoil, too. Shit, I hope there's a letter waitin' for me at base camp. My sister Ruthie was waitin' to see if she got into Brooklyn College and I know she found out by now. And youse never know. I mighta got a letter from Sal."

Bucky was still trying to figure out why the Silk Spectre wrote to the Comedian, after what he'd done to her.

Steve told him that sometimes love is strange.

Very strange, Bucky thought.

As he ate, a whole bunch of pieces of things slid around in his mind, and he took a good look at Eddie and imagined him without his mask on, and…

"You mean Ruthie Blake, don'tcha! I went to school with Ruthie Blake! I wanted to ask her to go on a date with me, but I was too afraid of her brother. Their father was Mick the Merciless, the most evil son-of-a bitch who ever lived! Jesus, you're Eddie Blake!" Bucky exclaimed.

He went a whiter shade of pale.

"He's Eddie Blake! Logan, you're not from New York. You don't know what that means. Everybody in Brooklyn knows Eddie Blake. He's a goddamn legend!"

"He's a goddamn superhero." Logan added.

"I'll keep my mouth shut, Eddie. I promise. I won't say shit."

The Comedian shook his head.

"You mean you only just figured that out?"

Bucky nodded.

"It's the mask, Logan. I musta seen this kid around a thousand times if I saw him once, and it took him this long to recognise me. You're a real fuckin' brain surgeon, Bucky."

"So, if we get home alive, can I take Ruthie out?" Bucky asked.

"Don't push your luck, kid. You done eatin'? I wanna get back on the road."

"Yeah, Eddie. An' will you stop callin' me kid? You're only two years older than I am."

"Yeah, yeah, kid. Get your gun and let's get the fuck outa here."

"Wait."

Logan stood up, sniffing the air.

"I thought I smelled somethin'. Now I know I hear somethin'. Somebody's in the basement. A woman. Around yours and Bucky's age, prob'ly."

"Bucky, you stay here." Eddie ordered.

He and Logan found the stairs to the basement and came down.

Bucky did not stay there.

If the Comedian tried to do it to Sally Jupiter, if his father did it to everybody in the whole family including him, what would stop him from doing it to some girl cowering in the basement of her dead parents' bombed out house?

He was Mick the Merciless' son, and bad blood is bad blood.

Steve would expect him to do his duty.

And if Eddie was going to do something like that, Bucky was going to shoot him.

War is hell.

***

"…I know you're down here, doll. C'mon out. We ain't gonna touch youse, I promise. Look, Miss Fritzie, Der Fuehrer ain't comin' down here to personally rescue your ass. You wanna stay here and die, it's your choice."

"Ask her if she speaks English, Comedian."

"You know German?"

"Some."

"I speak English. Most well-educated Germans speak English. Go away. I'm not expecting that monster to come and save me. I've got a gun, I don't need any help and even if I did, I'd rather die down here that submit myself to you."

The German accented voice came from a corner of the basement.

"You know what the word 'fuck' means, doll?"

"EDDIE!"

"Shut the fuck up, Bucky! I told youse to stay upstairs! Well, doll?"

"Yes. I do."

"Good. I promise that I'm not gonna try to fuck you. I'm just trying to get back to base camp alive, I'm not thinkin' about my dick right now. You know what that is, doll?"

"Yes. I do. I used to live in New York, I'm very familiar with all parts of the English language."

"Well, ain't that great? You comin' out? C'mon, you can't eat a gun. And you won't get the same deal from those Russkies, when they come through. They got more guys with more dicks they wanna stick in anything Fritz than you got bullets. Those boys are out for revenge on everything German that walks, crawls or flies, they ain't gonna bother to ask you what side you're on."

Bucky heard the sound of the bolt on a machine gun being pulled back, and a blonde girl about his age, kind of short, came out of the shadows, wearing rags that had once been men's military clothes, toting a machine gun.

"Are they dead? The people upstairs?"

"They were when we got here, Miss." Logan replied.

"I thought they were. They were hiding me from the Nazis."

"You a Jew?" Eddie asked.

"Yes. And I work with the resistance."

"Funny. Youse don't look Jewish. But, then again, neither does my landlord. You got a name, doll?"

"Sophie Kauffmann."

"Nice ta meetcha, Sophie. I'm the Comedian. The short guy with the claws is Mr. Logan. And the big hero on the stairs is Bucky Barnes."

"With the Invaders?" she asked.

"That's us, doll. You know how to use that thing?"

"I could shoot the eye out of a Nazi from a mile away."

"Good. Then you can do something besides sit in the back of the truck and bitch. We already got Bucky for that. Now as much as I'd love to stand around and talk all day, this place ain't too stable. I suggest we get the fuck outa here."

The Comedian threw something at Bucky, which he caught.

It was the keys.

"Go start the truck, Bucky." He barked.

***

Bucky sat in the cab of the Fritz supply truck between Sgt. Blake and Sgt. Howlett, with Sgt. Blake driving, as usual.

The girl had appropriated some Fritz fatigues from which she cut the insignia with a knife from her worn knapsack.

She asked if she could have some of the food and Logan told her to eat what she wanted, they had three crates of Fritz MRE's.

After commenting as to the disgusting nature of the food, she put her head on her knapsack, and covered up with a blanket they had taken from the bombed-out house, and went to sleep, holding the machine gun in her arms.

Bucky kept moving the drape behind them back, and looking at her.

"Cut that shit out. Let her sleep." Logan told him.

"Wudja think I was gonna do to her, Bucky?" Eddie asked.

"Leave him alone, Eddie."

"You stay the fuck outa this, Jimmy. Well, kid?"

"I…I…I'm sorry."

"Youse thought I was gonna fuck her, didn't youse? Just drag her outa the corner and throw her down an' fuck her. Figured me for a rapo, huh?"

Bucky didn't say anything.

"I ain't no rapo, kid. Despite what you heard about me. Now, if she wants me to fuck her, you bet your ass I will. She's a nice-looking broad. Those Jewish broads usually are. An' they know how ta have a good time. I bet after she gets a few regular meals and a bath she cleans up real good. So don't get any ideas, kid. You either, Jimmy."

"You found her, Eddie. She's all yours."

"I'm sorry, Eddie. I just thought, I mean, I heard…"

"I know what youse heard. Jesus, a man makes one fuckin' mistake in his life when he's nothin' more than a snot-nose punk don't know no better, and he can't live it down. I may be a lotta things, Bucky, but I ain't stupid. I don't make the same mistake twice. You know anything about broads, kid?"

"Eddie, I'm only two years younger than you are and I've done some pretty dirty jobs, you know. Yeah, I know about women."

"Bullshit. You wouldn't even take my sister to the movies because you was afraid I'd kill youse. Do youse know the most important thing about 'em?"

"What's that?"

"Ya gotta ask nice. And when they say no, they mean it. No matter what they do or what kinda fuck–me look they got on their face or clothes they got on, or the way they act. Otherwise, you'll fuck up your whole fuckin' life."

"I know that, Eddie. Why the hell are you tellin' me that?"

"Because of the way you keep lookin' in the back and squirming around like you got ants in your pants." Logan answered

Bucky looked into the back seat.

She was a pretty girl.

Maybe he was thinking, if I save her from Eddie, she'll be grateful.

She'll like me.

And…

Shit.

"Eddie, you sure do have a way of showing a guy how full of shit he really is." Bucky complained.

The Comedian laughed.

"That's because everybody's fulla shit. Lookit him, Logan, movin' that drape every five minutes. Fuckin' sex fiend. An' he thinks I'm gonna let him take my sister out. C'mon, Bucky, don't look so fuckin' morose. Laugh a little. It's good for ya."

Bucky honestly didn't see that there was anything to laugh at.

**II: Eddie**

It was another night in the truck.

Eddie pulled the truck off the road, down into the woods where nobody would see it.

Hopefully.

"Me an Bucky will take the first watch, Eddie. You been drivin' all day, go get some rest." Logan volunteered.

Eddie always drove.

Trucks, jeeps, cars, tanks, motorcycles, if it had wheels, Eddie could drive it right through anything, even Hell itself.

Which was pretty much exactly where they were.

The Jew broad, Sophie, she pulled the bolt back and pointed the machine gun at him as soon as he dropped the tailgate.

"Jesus, doll, let it go, willya? Quit actin like you're some vestal virgin all in white and I'm stormin' a path to your sacred pussy. I'm tired. I just wanna go to sleep."

"What's the matter, Comedian? Don't you like women?"

"You're real funny, doll. Just shut up and go ta sleep." Eddie said.

"I don't mind, you know. Not those other two. The kid's too green. And the short hairy one, not so much, but you? I don't mind."

"Mind?"

Eddie laughed.

"You don't mind? That ain't good enough for me, toots. I'm a fuckin' superhero. Women line up around the goddamn block to get me to fuck 'em. I got my pride. I ain't runnin' no yellow light. You tell me when I'm on green."

He turned over a few times, and fell off to sleep.

Later, when it was time for his watch, Logan and Bucky climbed into the back of the truck to go to sleep, and Sophie followed him into the front.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking my turn on watch."

They got into the front of the truck.

"Do you mind if we talk? I hardly ever get to talk to anybody." Sophie said.

"Sure. Why not. Whaddya wanna talk about?"

"I don't know. Tell me about New York. You're from Brooklyn, aren't you? I haven't been there since before the war. Has it changed?"

"I don't think I know about your New York, toots. My New York never fuckin' changes."

"You assume I had money because I'm a Jew?"

"I assume youse had money because you ain't even American an' your English is better than mine and you're askin' me about New York."

"It's true. I came from money. I was born here, but we went to New York when Hitler came to power. We had a nice life. I used to live in Manhattan. On the Upper East Side. My father thought Germany would be safe again after Chamberlain said we had peace in our time. He was wrong. Dead wrong."

"Shit. I guess you ain't got anybody left. Fuckin' Nazi cocksuckers."

"I have and aunt and uncle and three cousins in New York. And an older sister. But my parents are dead. So is my brother. My grandparents, too. Aunts, uncles, cousins. All of them. Dead. Everyone but me. You see these boots, Comedian? And this gun? You know how many men I killed to keep them? Like you said about the Russians. If it was German and it was breathing, I killed it. They're all a bunch of fucking Nazis, anyway. Fuck them."

Eddie shrugged.

"That's right, doll. I mean, they killed your women an' children an' old people, why should youse have any mercy on them? Hell, if I was youse, I'd do the same thing. Youse do what youse gotta do, in this world ta survive. At least, that's the way it was in out little slicea Hell up in East New York."

"Sounds like you haven't got much family left either, Comedian."

"I got some. More'n you, God save 'em. My father, the no good motherfucker, may he rot in Hell forever, he's dead. Ma's dead. I got a brother I never met dead and two little sisters and a brother died during the thirties. There's seven of us left, counting me. The four youngest, I take care of them. At least I did before the war. Their older sisters are lookin' after them, now, at my house. They all write to me, they can't wait for me to get home. I took care a the whole buncha them, since I was 14 years old."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty. You?"

"Twenty-one."

The Comedian reached into the truck's glove compartment, where he had put one of the bottles of booze he liberated.

"Here's to the best years of our lives." He cracked.

He had a drink and passed her the bottle.

Sophie laughed, and she took a drink.

"God forbid." She commented.

A little time passed.

"You know what I'm tired of, Comedian?"

"What?"

"Being a refugee. Being the wandering Jew. Being a soldier and a target and a martyr and everything else. I wish I could just be Sophie again. I used to like to have a good time. Go to movies. To clubs. Listen to jazz, smoke, have a few drinks. Maybe even a little tea, once in a great while. I wish I could go to sleep here and wake up at my sister's house. I'd put on a nice dress and a pair of nylons and go eat at the Automat and go to the movies at Radio City. Then I'd go dancing. With a man. A good-looking man, with shoulders as wide as the grill of this truck. A guy like you."

"Yeah. It'd be nice to go to the Automat. And go to the movies. With a woman. A nice-lookin' woman with great big tits and the kinda ass ya can hang onto. Kinda like you, doll."

"Well, we don't have New York, but, we got one another. What do you say, Comedian?"

Eddie slid across the seat.

"My name's Eddie." He told her.

She put her arms around his neck.

"Nice to meetcha. Let's get acquainted."

**III: Logan**

Bucky slept.

Logan didn't.

He sat there, listening to Eddie talk to the girl.

Eddie was funny about women.

Picky.

Well, maybe not picky.

He just had standards.

Well, when you're up to your ears in pussy and you have been since you were 16 years old because you're a big famous superhero who's almost six and a half feet tall, you can afford to have standards.

Logan, being comprised, he knew full well, of hair and stink and being only five foot three, could not afford to be picky.

If it was him, he would have been trying as hard as he could to get into her pants.

Not Eddie.

He never chased women; he let them chase him, and chase him they did, and he always let them catch him, but he didn't seem to care one from the other.

They were broads and he fucked them and he liked them well enough but when he was done with them he was done.

It might be a day, or it might be a couple of months or longer, but he never seemed to get too attached.

Then again, if he got a letter from Sally Jupiter, shit, the world ended.

It was Sally he really wanted, but he'd fucked the dog on that one.

Poor old Eddie.

Then he heard them shuffling around on the seat, a little.

Eddie and the girl.

She didn't waste much time moving in on him.

Their voices got quiet, he heard clothes rustling and then some murmuring and a few muffled gasps.

That was followed up by Eddie swearing, and the sound of impatient fingers tearing open a foil packet.

More rustling, the leather of the seats squeaking, a sigh from the girl that made the hair on the back of Logan's neck stand up, and the truck started to rock back and forth.

That woke Bucky up.

"What's goin on?" he asked.

"Ssssh. Be quiet. Get your gun and open the tailgate. We gotta keep watch awahile."

"Why?"

"Eddie and that Sophie girl are busy."

"What?"

Logan slapped Bucky's hand away from the drape.

"Wassamatter with you? You some kinda nut? Just shut up and keep a lookout till they're done."

"But what if he's, you know, hurting her?"

"You hear anybody screaming, 'No, no, no', Bucky?"

All of the sudden, they did hear somebody screaming, but it wasn't in protest and the truck started rocking, violently.

Eddie swore, and he said something pretty goddamn dirty and Bucky's face turned cherry red.

Logan almost laughed at him.

Yeah, sure, he knew a lot about women.

Logan made a note to himself that when they got back to camp, he was going to have to talk to Steve about getting Bucky laid.

Hell, he'd donate the money to pay for it.

"Did you hear what he just said to her? Holy shit!"

"Yeah, I did. Women like it when you say shit like that to them while you're puttin' it to them. C'mon, Bucky, let's get outa here."

"They do? Really? Dirty stuff like that?"

"Yeah. First you say it, then you do it. Let's go."

They got out of the truck and Logan lit a cigar.

You could see the whole goddamn truck moving, and the windows were all fogged up.

"Wow. He's really givin' her the time, huh?" Bucky commented.

"He sure is." Logan laughed.

They sat down in the grass with their guns, their backs to the truck.

"You think we'll make it back to camp, soon?" Bucky asked.

"Another day or so. If nobody kills us."

"You think I should talk to Steve? You know, about…all this?"

"If you think it'll help. You look tired, Bucky. Go ahead, go to sleep."

"I'll wait till we get back in the truck."

Logan laughed again.

"That might be awhile. G'wan, knock off."

Bucky went back to sleep.

Logan stayed up all night long.

He didn't need much sleep, anymore.

***

Sophie was out of cigarettes, but Eddie had a pack.

She rolled down one of the fogged-up windows and watched the smoke drift out.

_You get his number in New York, Sophie. They don't make a lot of sons-of-bitches like this one._

"Hey, Sophie?"

"Yeah, Eddie?"

"When we get back to base camp, I'll getcha a dress. And some nylons."

"You don't have to do that for me."

"I ain't. It's for me. I can't fuck a broad wearin' fatigue pants. Makes me feel like some kinda faggot."

Sophie laughed.

"You got any more of those rubbers?"

"Yeah."

"Then I'll take these fatigue pants off."

***

In the morning they all crammed into the cab of the truck, driving over the blasted landscape.

They were pretty close to the base camp and the roads were pretty clear, so Eddie really had his foot on the gas.

Bucky sat in the middle so he didn't have to look at the devastation.

The girl was glued to the window, she was practically sitting in Eddie's lap to get a look.

"Good for them, the Nazi sons of bitches! Good for them all."

"How can you say that?" Bucky asked.

"Who's side are you on?"

"Ours. Yours. But, these people aren't soldiers. They're civilians. They're innocent…"

Logan could smell the rage exploding out of the young Jewish woman and he tossed her gun into the back of the truck before she could shoot Bucky, so she had to be satisfied with punching him in the face.

"Innocent? Innocent! They're all fucking Nazi bastards! Whose sons do you think are at the front? Who do you think cheered for Hitler at all those rallies, supported him and still worship him like he's God Himself? You know who's innocent? The Jews and the Gypsies and the Reds and everybody else these people cheered along to deaths crueller than this? They killed our women and children and old people! Why should I have mercy on theirs? Open your eyes, boy! You want to know about this war? I'll show you?"

Sophie yanked Eddie's sidearm out of its holster and shot an old man who was walking alone down the road with a basket lashed to his back.

Logan noted that she drilled him right between the eyes, left-handed, over Eddie's shoulder, from a moving vehicle.

That was some kind of shooting.

Eddie didn't so much as bat an eyelash.

"What are you doing?" Bucky shouted.

"He was a Nazi! They're all Nazis! That old man, he sat at his table and ate and drank and laughed and said Heil Hitler while my people were stripped of our rights, hounded, persecuted and murdered by the hundreds of thousands. He wanted to see Hitler take over the world, take over your America, and slaughter every man woman and child who didn't come up to their sick, evil standards. Your friend here with the claws? Mutant. Dead. The Comedian here, in the mask, driving the truck? Dangerous nonconformist. Dead. You, with your bleeding heart? Weak. Stupid. Probably some kind of Communist. Dead. Wake up, kid! Before your weakness kills you!"

She put Eddie's gun back.

Logan was looking back, at the basket in the road.

He smelled food.

"Hey, Eddie, pull over. I smell food. Real fuckin' fresh food. I think the old man had a basket full of it." Logan told him

Eddie pulled the truck over.

"That was some goddamn good shootin', doll." He commented.

Sophie climbed over Bucky and pointer her gun out one window, and Eddie had the other.

"We gotcha covered, Logan." Eddie said.

Logan got out of the truck, got the basket, and jumped in the back.

"Let's go! Holy shit! There's a goddamn ham in here! Cooked! A whole ham. And fresh bread. And eggs! Fuckin' eggs, holy shit! And milk! Real goddamn milk!"

"Oh yeah? Nice shootin' Sophie. Let's eat."

Eddie pulled the truck off the road, into the trees and they all got out and went in the back.

Bucky was still in the front seat.

Logan went to get him.

Bucky had an expression on his face, like someone had shot him.

"C'mon, Bucky. Sophie had a canna Sterno, we're cookin' the eggs, an' everthing. C'mon kid. There was a gun in that basket. If it had been the other way around, that old Fritz woulda shot you for your shoes. C'mon an' eat."

"You know what, Logan? I get it now why Eddie calls me kid." Bucky replied.

Sophie stuck her head through the curtain.

"Hey you, Bucky? I'm sorry I hit you. But you seem like a nice boy. A good boy. I don't want to see those Nazi bastards use that against you. I made some eggs, just for you. Come on and eat."

"Yes, ma'am." Bucky said.

He and Logan got into the back of the truck.

"Hey, good news, kid. If the road holds up, we should be able to make it back to camp before it gets dark." Eddie told him.

Bucky looked at the ham and eggs, and took a bite.

"This is good." He said.

He took another spoonful.

"This is really, really good!"

"What can I say? My father was in the restaurant business. Here. Have some more. You too, Mr. Logan."

After they ate, they got back on their way.

Bucky thought about it.

Sophie wasn't a bad person. The Nazis killed her whole family and drove her into hiding like a mad animal. Eddie wasn't a bad person. His father was a Devil who did horrible, unspeakable things to him that made him brutal and violent and heartless, but there was enough good left in him to become a hero instead of a villain and take care of what was left of his family. Logan wasn't a bad man, either. He was a decent, honourable man who'd had to suffer over his long life because he was a mutant, and even though most people hated and feared him, he still found it in his heart to be a protector rather than a destroyer.

Some people were born bad.

Some people chose to be bad.

Some people had every reason to be bad, and when they had to they did horrible things, but, somehow, they managed to stay good at heart.

Most people were essentially good at heart, it was the world that twisted them and led them to evil.

"Do you guys think that people are good and it's the world that's bad?" Bucky absently said.

"People, as individuals, are usually good. People in a group, especially angry, frightened people, that's what's bad. That's what makes the world bad." Sophie replied.

"Sounds about right to me." Logan agreed.

"It's all a big fucking joke, Bucky. The shit people say that you're supposed ta do. Nobody does it. Everybody does whatever they want and pretend they don't and they point their fingers at people who do what they want, openly, or at the people who clean up the mess they make and do their dirty work so they can continue to live their nice little bullshit lives. It's all a big fucking joke and this right here, all around us, that's the punchline." Eddie opined.

"So, that's why you call yourself the Comedian? Because you get the joke?" Sophie asked.

"Absolutely, doll."

"You're a hard man, Eddie. But, you know what they say. A hard man is good to find." Sophie joked.

She got a laugh out of Eddie and Logan, but not out of Bucky.

He got the joke, too, and he still didn't see anything to laugh about.

**III: Steve**

Even though it had been nearly two weeks since Bucky, Eddie and Lucky Jim had been separated from the rest of the Invaders, Captain America refused to believe they were dead.

For one thing, it was goddamn near impossible to kill Lucky Jim. You could shoot him in the head and he'd get up and pop out those bony claws and gut you like a fish.

And as for Eddie, he might not have been a mutant, but he was from the wrong side of Brooklyn, he had Mick the Merciless' bad blood in his veins, and it was a good thing he'd ended up on the right side of the cape, because he was about as mean, tough and strong as they come.

Not to mention he could ride into Hell on a pink tricycle and ride out in a Sherman tank.

And Bucky, he knew how to look after himself, and Eddie and Jimmy would be watching him.

Steve hadn't wanted Bucky to see what it was that Colonels Blake and Howlett's mission was; hell, he would rather that their mission wasn't necessary, but it was war, goddamnit, total war, and it was the Nazis who had played this tune, now they were going to have to pay the piper.

He could explain to Bucky, when the boy came back.

So, every day, four times a day, Captain America got on the Invaders emergency channel and broadcast the same message, over and over again, for at least an hour.

He knew, he just knew in his heart that sooner or later he'd get an answer.

"This is Captain America, calling the Comedian. Come in Comedian. Do you read me? This is Captain America, calling the Comedian. Come in Comedian. Do you read me? This is…"

Night was falling and Steve had been transmitting for half an hour when he finally got a reply.

"You bet your ass I do, Cap! Everybody made it. We're comin in with a stocked Fritz supply truck."

He could hear cheering in the background; one voice was unmistakably a woman's.

Of course.

Leave it to Eddie.

"God damn, Eddie, you could ride into hell on a tricycle and roll out in a tank! I'm coming out to meet you. Are you on the main road?"

"Yeah."

"Good. I'll escort you in. Over and out."

***

When Bucky saw the jeep with Cap's symbol on it, and Cap in it, he started to cry.

He got out of the truck and ran over to the jeep and jumped in the back where the .30 caliber machine gun was.

He was back where he belonged, but it didn't feel the same.

It would never feel the same.

Bucky tried not to show how he felt, but Steve noticed that there was something wrong, immediately.

"Are you alright, Bucky?"

"No, Steve. I'm not sure I'll ever be alright again." Bucky replied, honestly.


	3. Keep Your Powder Dry

**Chapter 3: Keep Your Powder Dry **

**I: Sophie**

When they first left Germany to move to New York, in 1934, Sophie was eleven.

They had to leave their pet cat behind, so when they moved into their new home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, her father took her to the animal shelter to pick out a new cat.

The new cat, Gracie, who if she was still alive was living with Sophie's married sister in Greenpoint, was about a year old when they got her, and she had never had a home before.

Gracie was extremely affectionate, for a cat, and she loved her new home and her owners; it was like she was so very grateful to have a warm, safe place to live, but if they didn't let her out at night she crawled the walls.

Sophie asked her father why.

Ben Kauffmann explained to her that Gracie had been wild for so long, even though she was glad to have a home, in a way, she couldn't trust it. With time, she would settle in, and they wouldn't have to let her out.

Ben had been right about Gracie, and Sophie hoped the same thing went for her as for her cat.

The Invaders base camp was the safest place she had been in since 1939.

No one was coming to kill her; death wasn't lurking just around another bush. She didn't have to worry about where she was going to sleep, or what she was going to eat, or who she was going to have to kill to stay alive and keep her meagre belongings.

It was like a little slice of heaven, on one hand, and on the other hand, she just didn't trust it.

Three times while she was walking around the base, she went back to the Comedian's tent to check and see if her knapsack and her gun were still there.

The third time, she ran into Eddie, returning to his barracks-tent.

"Can't get used to it, huh?"

"No."

She closed the door behind her.

"Yeah, I know how youse feel. Me, I never quite settle down. Can't sleep alla way through the night. I know the Old Man's in his grave, because I put him there, and he ain't coming back, but old habits are hard to break, and some shit, it never goes away."

"But does it get a little better, after awhile?"

"Yeah. It will, especially after you get back to New York."

Eddie sat down on his bunk, and Sophie sat down in his chair.

"Hey, Eddie, what you and Logan do, is it kinda like what I did with the Resistance?"

"What did you do with the Resistance?"

"Blew up trucks. Train tracks, sometimes. Killed Nazis in gruesome ways. Left heads on poles. Sniper attacks. Anything and everything to hinder those bastards, and maybe, just maybe, put the fear of God in them."

"That's exactly what me an' Jimmy do. The dirty work. Except we got the military might of the Allied powers behinds us. Trucks. Dynamite. Grenades. Body armor. Machine guns. Bombs. I know how to drive a tank. Whatever we want, whatever we need to make the enemy suffer an' bleed. No questions asked. Why?"

The way he was grinning at her, she knew he knew why.

"Maybe I'm not ready to call the war a day and go back to New York before I've had the pleasure of standing up to my ankles in Nazi blood." Sophie replied.

"Yeah, I kinda figured youse for that. Now I'm a good shot, and so is Logan, but not like you, Soph. We ain't got a sniper like you. An' with you bein' a broad an' all, we could lure some of those Fritzes into a pretty tight spot. Whaddya say?"

"What do you think I say? But, do you have the authority to make me a part of the team?"

"Nope. But Cap does. This is his operation, don't let the name fool youse, he's General Steve Rogers. You wouldn't happen to be a US Citizen, would you, now?"

Sophie rooted in her knapsack for her most precious treasure of all, her United States passport that showed that she was a naturalised American citizen, and handed it to Eddie.

"How do you feel about joining up with good old Uncle Sam, Sophie?"

"Just show me where to sign."

***

Eddie was gone from the tent for awhile; long enough for Sophie to read through several issues of the New York Post he had; it was good to read the news of home.

Make no mistake, New York City was Sophie's home.

He came back with Captain America.

"How are you doing, Miss Kauffmann?"

"Fine, thank you."

"Miss Kaufmann, you do realise that if you enlist in the United States Army, you won't be going back to New York until the end of the war, you'll be going right back out there into battle?"

"If that's where the enemy are, Captain, then that's where I want to be. I've got a few scores to settle with these Nazi sons-of-bitches. I'll go home when the war is over, and Hitler's dead, even if I have to kill him, myself."

"See Cap? I toleja."

"What rank did you hold with the Resistance, Miss Kauffmann?"

"I was a Sergeant in charge of a small brigade, from 1942 until about six months ago. The Nazis wiped out all my men, and I escaped. I'm a wanted enemy of the Reich, so I had to resort to hiding in basements, until I could find a contact with the movement. That's where your men found me."

"And what was it that your squad did?"

"What you would call guerrilla or commando work. Dirty work. Real dirty. Massacres. Explosions. Bridges, trucks, trains, anything. Some espionage. I'm also a sharpshooter, and I know a lot more about explosives than the average nice Jewish girl."

Cap laughed.

He was very German-looking, but Rogers was an English name, then again, all these Americans were mutts.

Still, it was nice to see a German face, smiling at her in approval and welcome.

"Well, then, I am prepared, after I see your passport, to induct you into the United States Army, Women's Army Corps as a Sergeant, under my command, and assign you to special duty, effective immediately with the commando squad of the Invaders. We'll need a few days to get you outfitted, and to put the paperwork through, and I think you and Eddie and Lucky Jim need a little time for recovery, but we should have you in uniform and back on duty in about a week, soldier. How does that suit you?"

Sophie realised she had tears in her eyes, and she didn't want them to be heard in her voice, so she stood up and saluted, smartly.

"Eddie, hold this flag up for me. Miss Kauffmann, I don't have a copy of a Jewish holy book around here anywhere, but I did manage to find a Bible that just has the Old Testament. Will that be alright?"

A German face that respected her religion, and her culture.

I am going to cry.

"Yes, sir." She said.

"Good. Place one hand on the holy book, and, wait, I've got no pockets in this suit, here it is, please raise you right hand, and repeat after me. I, Sophie Kauffmann, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

It was a good thing for Sophie that she had a very good memory.

She repeated the Oath, perfectly.

"Welcome to the US Army, Sergeant Kauffmann."

"Thank you very much, Captain America."

**II: Logan**

"Lucky Jim" didn't understand why he and Eddie got a hero's welcome.

It was their duty to get back to base camp, to make things hard for the Fritzes, and to look after Bucky.

Rescuing sympathetic refugees was also within the scope of their duty; nothing they had done was anything more than it was their duty as soldiers and members of the Invaders to do.

They had been hired onto the team to do a job, and that job was to terrorise the Nazis, to bring to them a little of the Hell on Earth they had brought to most of Europe.

That was their job and they did it well, and after a few days of R&R, they'd be doing it again.

Maybe it was just because Logan didn't like being fussed over, and he didn't like being called Jim, or Jimmy, or Lucky Jim.

If Cap or Eddie did it, well that was okay, but otherwise?

No.

Maybe it was because he didn't feel like Sophie Kauffmann needed saving.

Some people don't need saving; they can save themselves.

She would have crawled out of that basement on her own after they left and shot her way across the last stretch to an Allied camp, which was the Invaders base camp they were in right .

Sophie walked through the gates under her own steam a few days after they got there, regardless, and it wouldn't have taken long for her to find Eddie and Eddie to find her.

Sophie was a survivor. And a fighter. She wasn't cowering in that basement , she was writing with a machine gun. Had they made any moves against her, she would have blown them to hell. She had only been on the base for an hour before she had her American passport in her hand, looking to enlist, so she could ship out ASAP with him and Eddie, and do some serious Nazi-killing.

Sophie had a thirst for Nazi blood that she wouldn't be able to slake in the States, and Logan couldn't say he blamed her.

As for himself, Logan would rather that he could have saved Bucky.

Then he would have felt like he deserved a hero's welcome.

Sure, they brought him back alive, but Logan had lived long enough to know when a man was broken and Bucky was shattered like a water glass that fell onto a brick fireplace.

And all the king's horses and all the king's men weren't going to be able to put Bucky Barnes back together, again.

He was tired, he'd been awake for two weeks straight, almost, and even he had to sleep, but when he lay down in his bed in his tent, sleep didn't come.

All he could think of was that terrible night when Bucky had asked him and Eddie to do the right thing, the decent thing, a thing they would have done for a dog, and they couldn't do it.

He went out and started walking around the base, and, seeing the light on in Cap's tent, he knocked on the door.

"Come in."

"Hiya, Steve. So, how's Bucky?"

"I'm not sure, Jimmy. Is that what's keeping you awake, too?"

"Yeah. Everybody's celebrated us comin' in today, with no casualties. Bullshit. We had a casualty. Bucky. He's done, Steve. Fuckin' finished. Beyond help. Oh sure, as long as he's with you, as long as the war's on, he'll have a reason to keep up the good fight. But, when the war's over and he's back in New York…I've seen it happen to a whole lotta guys. He'll start drinkin' heavy, real heavy. He won't sleep at night for the bad dreams, and only the booze will keep his memories at bay. I know you'll try to help him, but you're gonna have bigger things to worry about than Bucky's mental health. Who knows, maybe Bucky'll find some nice girl who wants to save him, but she won't be able to. The woman will have to leave, get a divorce, take the kids, and that'll only kill poor Bucky a little more. He'll end up a broken-down, balding, red-nosed wreck with shaking hands and a beer gut by the time he's 35, sitting at the end of a bar in Brooklyn with pieces of his old uniform on, raving about the war to whoever will stop to listen. All day from opening to closing, shuffling back to a flophouse or whatever he can afford on the check he gets from the War Office that he drinks most of. I Me and Eddie, we shoulda killed him when we had the chance. It would have been a helluva lot better than dragging the shell of the poor kid back here."

"What do you mean, killed him when you had the chance?"

"It happened a few nights before we met up with Sophie, I mean, Sergeant Kauffmann, don't I? Anyway, I was on watch, and Bucky and Eddie were sleeping in the back of the truck. Bucky woke Eddie up screaming like it was the end of the world and I ran into the back of the truck. You shoulda seen him. He woke up in a cold sweat with tears coming out of his eyes screamin' amd screamin. Eddie had to put his hand over the kid's mouth to keep him from givin' our position away. And them, once he calmed down, Bucky he begged us both to shoot him. And he meant it. He said he didn't wanna live anymore and he couldn't imagine living with this till he was old and grey. He said if we had any regard for him as men and soldiers, we'd kill him."

"What did you do?"

"What we felt it was our duty to do. As men. And soldiers. We left the truck and took him out behind it. Eddie told him to turn around, and he put his sidearm to the back of Bucky's head, and I did the same thing. Neither of us wanted to be the only one responsible. But, we couldn't do it. Neither of us. He was cryin', and sobbin', an shakin' like a leaf. So we tried to give him a runnin' start, but we still couldn't do it. I chased after him and I caught up to him and he grabbed my hand, an' put it up against his throat and begged me to pop just one claw. I couldn't do it. I'm no hero, Steve. I'm the dirty coward who doomed Bucky Barnes to a lifetime of Hell."

"Logan, a man of honour, a soldier, hell, a decent human being doesn't shoot a disturbed comrade in the head like a mad dog out in the back of a hijacked truck. And that goes for you and Eddie. He may not be a good man, but he's a good soldier and he has a good side. This is 1944, Logan, not 1884. There are doctors and hospitals and medicines to treat Bucky's problems, all of which will be more effective than a bullet in the back of the head. Or a claw to the throat. And you don't have to worry about what happens to him after the war. I took responsibility for him when he was 14 years old, and if that means he'll be my responsibility for the rest of my life, then, that's the way it's going to be."

"That's a pretty big burden to carry, Cap."

"That's alright with me, Logan. You think you'll be getting any sleep tonight?"

"No."

"Me neither. How about we play some cards?"

"For cigarettes?"

"Suits me. You think Eddie wants in?"

"I think Eddie's getting into something a little sweeter than a card game, right now, Cap."

Cap laughed, in spite of himself.

Sometimes you have to laugh, because of you cry, you won't stop anytime soon.

"How does he do it?"

"It's the crazy ones. They all love him."

**II: Eddie**

Back at the camp, in his own tent, the Comedian waited for Sergeant Sophie Kauffmann to return from the showers.

She had on a big oversized bathrobe, but you could still tell she was no ordinary dogface.

"Boy, I must clean up well. On the way here, I saw lights going on in tents so these guys could get a better look at me."

"Look is all they better do."

"Why, Eddie? Do I belong to you, like the new pair of boots Logan found in the Schrafft's house belong to him?"

"You wanna take your chances out there, go ahead. You can have yourself a gang bang and you won't have it like you got it with me."

"You're a real cocky sunnuvabitch, aren't you, Eddie? I hope whatever uniform I get comes with fatigue pants. Some of those enlisted men look pretty hungry, and not every man I killed for trying to make me submit to him was a German."

"As long as I'm around, doll, you won't have to kill anybody. Any of these dogfaces try to touch you, I'll rip their lungs out." Eddie laughed.

He pulled something out from under his pillow and held them up for her.

"Remember what you were sayin' about a dress an' some nylons? Before you put on your new fatigues, maybe you could try these on for size. For after the war, when you an' me go dancin'."

"I don't understand you, Eddie. You roll in here, you're the big hero. Everybody wants to shake your hand. Even Captain America, himself. You saved that idiot mascot boy who thinks this is a movie about a war, and you brought back a truck stuffed with German weapons and provisions. And the only thing you want is for me to take a bath and put on a dress and some nylons so you can look at me in them, and then take them off again."

"Hell, I'm just a man, doll. All we ever think about is pussy, beer and food. Didn't anybody ever tell you that?"

"Sure. And the only kind of men I like are the ones that's true about. Now, turn around ad I'll put these on for you. No peeking. It'll ruin the effect."

It was a cheap dress, and they were low quality nylons, but to Sophie they might as well have come from Saks Fifth Avenue.

The last time she wore a dress and nylons was the day the Nazis came to the barn where her family was hiding, to take them all away.

It was nice, nice to just be a woman again, alone with a man who bought you a dress and nylons just so he could look at you in them, and take them off, again.

"Okay, Eddie, turn around. So, do you like what you see?"

"Yeah. I do. I didn't get to see it before. Too dark. And you was wearing too many clothes. You Jewish girls sure are stacked, I gotta say. I'm no bigot, Soph. I been beaten with brooms and knocked outa windows, an' had my life threatened by almost as many irate Jewish fathers as I have Micks and Polacks and Wops. That's what we had in my neighbourhood, and that's what I like. High-class WASP broads, you can have 'em. They all got big problems and small tits." The Comedian mused.

"That's what I miss about New York, Eddie. Guys like you. Jesus, I miss the city."

"I miss it too, doll. But we'll be home soon enough."

"You think we'll make it?"

"Think? Fuck, I know I will. An' now you're with me and Jimmy, you got a helluva lot better chance than youse did before."

"I like the sound of that. So, how much do you like what you see, Eddie?"

He smiled at her.

"Enough I'd like to see it better."

"Well you just wait a minute, mister. I'm a nice girl. I don't go with just anybody. When we get back to New York, are you gonna call me? You gonna take me to the pictures? Buy me dinner? Take me dancin'?"

"Sure I will."

"You lyin' to me, Eddie?"

"Would I lie to a woman who can shoot like you can?"

"I sure hope not."

Eddie walked over to Sophie, and she found herself glad to be in his arms, again.

"Hey, doll, you know I can tell if a woman ain't putting it on for me?"

He slid his hand under her dress, and along the slippery fabric of her nylons.

His hand stopped in the middle of her thigh, right where the nylon and the garter stopped, and her leg began.

There was something about the way he stroked her thigh, right there at the juncture of stocking and skin than made Sophie feel dizzy in the head and weak in the knees.

Molten.

"It works every time." The Comedian chuckled.

**III: Steve**

Before he was injected with the Super Soldier serum and became Captain America, Steve Rogers was just a struggling college student from Red Hook, in Brooklyn.

He grew up in a pretty traditional family, under rather conventional circumstances. They didn't have a lot of money, growing up during the Depression, but they made do, and his childhood and youth were unmarred by major tragedy.

Young Steve Rogers had been taught to be hard-working and fair, kind and generous, to be loyal to friends and family and tolerant of people of other nationalities and religions. After all, America was the great melting pot. He was brought up to love God, freedom, democracy, his neighbourhood and his fellow man. It was the duty of the strong, of a man, to protect the weak, like women, children and old people. It was also the duty of a man to be brave, honest, and decent, in the face of all adversity. He was taught to love his country and trust the wise men who the people had elected to run it, as well as public servants like policemen and fireman. He believed that most people were honest, decent folks and that they wanted the best for themselves, their families, and the world, and that bad people, that evil itself, was some kind of easily discovered aberration.

This terrible war had shown him all the ways that human beings could violate those simple truths he had held dear, and showed him all the shades of grey in his black and white views and perceptions.

The Invaders, of course were meant to be, no, were a force for good, for the greater good, for the winning of the war.

He constructed the team in accordance with his morals and his values.

And then he recruited two men, two men he found it impossible not to like, good soldiers, in their own ways, good men, to systematically act in a way that was repugnant to everything he held dear.

Logan he met in Madripoor in 1941; they rescued a young Russian girl from the clutches of the Hand, there.

He was a complicated man, decades older than Steve, a veteran of many wars and many lives. He lived by a strict code of honour. Steve suspected he was some kind of oriental knight, but he wasn't sure. All he would really say about his background was that he was Canadian, and that his name was James Howlett, and he came from British Columbia.

He had stories about the Gold Rush and WWI, and the Mexican revolution, tales of living with the Indians in the Great White North but neither Steve nor anyine else really knew too mucg about Logan.

What they did know was that he was the kind of man who did what he had to do when he had to do it, and he didn't mind unleashing the beast in him when it was necessary.

Eddie Blake, the Comedian, in some ways, was his polar opposite.

He had packed so much into his twenty years of life it was hard to believe he was just a young pup, but that's what he was.

The only honor he had was the honor he learned in the street; don't ever rat, don't leave a buddy in the lurch, take care of your own, and meet blood with blood and violence with violence.

The man was fuelled almost completely by rage, a rage he came by honestly, through surviving the most nightmarish possible upbringing that Steve Rogers could imagine.

The Comedian was a murderer at 13, of his own father, a brutal criminal who escaped Death Row, where he sat waiting for the chair, officially for the murder of a policeman, but also for many unconfirmed murders to his name, including the suspicious deaths of two of his own children.

He was a superhero at 16, going into the mask game to see to it that men like his father were wiped from the Earth, and to feed his family; after the death of his mother he became responsible for six siblings, three of whom were under the age of 10.

He was a soldier at 18, a black-ops commando soldier, with whom Cap became acquainted with Eddie in Italy in 1943, where the young superhero had been transferred after his great success in the war in the Pacific.

Sitting in a trench eating Corn Flakes and beer out of his helmet, with a jaunty grin on his stubbled face, shovelling the food into his mouth on the edge of a hunting knife clasped in his fist whose knuckles were permanently bluish from frequent breaking, his uniform spattered with blood that wasn't his, dirt, gun oil, and soot.

And now they were to be joined by a third black-hearted killer, a deadly sniper and explosives expert who had lived on the run like a hunted wild animal since 1939. A hard-eyed, single-minded fighting machine with a heart full of rage and an unquenchable thirst for revenge for a slaughtered family that could be slaked only by Nazi blood.

Logan would go out and commit, well, they were atrocities, no matter how you dressed them up because that was what needed to be done and he was capable of doing it.

Killing Nazis was nothing personal to him; they were the enemy; they were threatening the stability of the world he lived in; they needed to die.

Eddie welcomed any channel for his rage. To him, the authoritarian, ruthless, amoral Nazis, systematic killers of women, children and old folks were in the same category of despicable scum as his hated father. Death was too good for them, but if it was all he could give them, he'd settle for it.

Killing Nazis was intensely personal to Eddie; he couldn't kill in cold blood, but he was so full of rage that it didn't take much to make his blood boil.

And the Jewish sniper, who lost her whole family to the Nazis deranged vendetta against the Jews, well, the sniper's reasons for wanting oceans of Nazi blood didn't have to be elaborated on.

Why did he think of Sergeant Kauffmann in those terms?

Sophie.

Sophie Kauffmann, yes, Steve, Sophie, yes, a woman.

She didn't want to go back to New York and safety to buy dresses and nylons and war bonds and a pair of coveralls so she could work for the war effort, she wanted to join the army so she could be assigned to the commando unit and go out there into the field armed to the teeth and fight, fight, fight and kill, kill, kill.

What's more, she had the skills to do it, and the guts, as well.

She understood what had to be done, no matter how dirty of a job it was, it had to be done, these Nazis like criminal rats of humanity and their evil had to be wiped from the face of the Earth.

She understood it, Lucky Jim understood it, Eddie understood it, and Steve didn't like some of the methods he had to use, but he understood it, too.

Bucky was a brave, strong young man.

He was only two years younger than Eddie.

Why couldn't he understand?

Sometimes Steve thought about what would happen after the war.

But when he did, he often wondered what he would tell his family when he got home.

His mother and father were honest, decent, hard-working Irish immigrants, and although they were both gone, he came from a big family, a family of proud relatives, brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces who would want to hear all about what he'd done during the war.

What was he supposed to tell them?

That there was good in bad men, and bad in good men, that human beings were capable of evils that it seemed Satan himself could scarcely imagine, that sometimes a woman could be stronger, tougher and more courageous than a man, that the strong oppressed and destroyed the week with depressing regularity and that he would be fighting an uphill battle against that kind of evil for the rest of his life?

And how would he introduce his comrades at arms, his army buddies, a brutal and amoral young man struggling to channel his homicidal fury into his mission as a superhero and a mutant in his nineties with bone claws that sprung from his hands, the consummate soldier and the consummate loner, grappling eternally with the man and the animal that were constantly duking it out within him?

Well, he could just explain they were fellow Irishmen, couldn't he, and Eddie was from East New York, and now he lived in Bensonhurst.

That would do.

What about Bucky?

This is the boy I brought into Hell when he was only 14, it destroyed him by the time he was 18, I tried to protect him and failed and now I have to live with that failure for the rest of his life, he's my responsibility.

I'm sure they'd understand.

It's been a week since they returned.

They're all fine.

Hale and hearty and ready to go.

We've got Sergeant Kauffmann all outfitted, as soon as her uniform and her dog tags arrive, all I have to do is give the word and off they'll go.

And she and Eddie will sleep in the truck, drink together, sleep together, while Logan stands watch, outside.

And Bucky puts up a good front, but he's not the young man he was.

In a week or two he'll seem like he's back to normal, he'll have constructed sufficient defences to go on by then, but he won't be the same.

Never the same.

Like Logan said, he's done.

Finished.

"Steve?"

Bucky was sticking his head through the door; he looked worried.

"Jeez, Steve, I kept knocking, but you didn't say anything. Are you alright?"

"I was just thinking about some things."

"Well, Miss, er, Sergeant Kaufmann's uniform and her dog tags got here, and she and Eddie and Lucky Jim are itching to get back out there. They're waiting for your orders."

"Well, I can't let them down, can I? They've got places to go, and Nazis to shoot."

Bucky laughed a little.

"I'm OK, Steve. Really, I am."

"You're a good man, Bucky. Well, time to go do my job."


End file.
